OTTR Giving Credits
Crediting contributors clearly

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Last updated: September 11, 2026

OTTR courses use an About.qmd, About.Rmd or About.md file to show who contributed to the course and what kind of work they did.

Use the credits table to make contributions easy to understand, especially when the same person appears in more than one role.

Credits Table Checklist

Open About.qmd, About.Rmd or About.md in your course repository.

Keep the required engineer role rows listed in the Engineer Roles section as-is.

Delete rows for optional roles that do not apply to your course (as a reminder, please ensure that you keep rows that credit OTTR developers).

Use singular labels for one person and plural labels for multiple people.

Add links below the table using bracket notation when you want names to link to personal websites. For example:

| Credits | Names |
|:---|:---|
| Lead Content Instructor | [FirstName LastName] |
| Course Publishing Engineers | [FirstName LastName], [SecondName LastName] |

<!-- Author information -->

[FirstName LastName]: https://example.com
[SecondName LastName]: https://example.org

Bracket Notation for Repeated Authors

Bracket notation keeps the credits table readable when a person appears in multiple rows.

Write the person’s name in square brackets every place the name should appear:

| Credits | Names |
|:---|:---|
| Lead Content Instructor | [Avery Example] |
| Content Author | [Avery Example], [Sam Rivera] |
| Course Publishing Engineer | [Sam Rivera] |

Then link each linked name to their personal website once below the table:

<!-- Author information -->

[Avery Example]: https://avery.example.edu
[Sam Rivera]: https://sam.example.org

The same bracketed name can be reused as many times as needed. Markdown will link each [Avery Example] entry to the same website.

Instructor Roles

Role	Use When
Lead Content Instructor	The person leads the course content and takes on a large share of the teaching/content effort
Lecturer	The person delivers the course online or in recorded teaching materials
Content Author	The person writes a substantial amount of course content
Content Contributor	The person writes a smaller amount of content, less than about one chapter
Content Consultant	The person gives specialized content guidance but does not write or edit the content
Content Editor	The person edits content without otherwise authoring it
Content Director	The person guides the course direction or content strategy

If a person both teaches the material and writes substantial course content, list them in each role that applies.

Engineer Roles

Role	Use When
Course Publishing Engineer	The person works on the technical setup or generation for this specific course

Ensure the following role allocations are not removed from your course, this credits the developers of OTTR:

Role
Template Publishing Engineer
Publishing Maintenance Engineer
Technical Publishing Stylist
Package Developer

Art and Design Roles

Role	Use When
Illustrator(s)	Created graphics for the course
Figure Artist(s)	Created figures/plots for course
Videographer(s)	Filmed videos
Videography Editor(s)	Edited film
Audiographer(s)	Recorded audio
Audiography Editor(s)	Edited audio recordings

Authors: Padmashri Saravanan from BioDataSage created the cheatsheet content. Carrie Wright reviewed the material. Kate Isaac created the original styling, Carrie Wright did the css styling and Carrie Wright and Candace Savonen did the publishing engineering for the cheatsheet. OTTR was created and or is maintained by the following team: Candace Savonen, Carrie Wright, Kate Isaac, Ava Hoffman, Adam Coffman, Katherine Cox, Federick Tan, John Muschelli, Howard Baek, and Jeffrey Leek.